1/ As law professor @jedshug explains on @Slate, federal law doesn't require an explicit agreement between parties for the criminal statute prohibiting coordination between campaigns and foreign nationals to be violated. Paul Manafort committed this crime.
2/ The Mueller Report erroneously proceeded under an interpretation of federal law that no independent legal experts have agreed with: that a criminal conspiracy to violate election law requires an explicit agreement. But whether this "error" was indeed an *accident* is in doubt.
3/ The evidence of the Mueller Report, criminal investigative SOPs, and major-media reporting establishes that the original intent of the special counsel's office was to charge Paul Manafort with conspiracy with Russia—and that Trump knew this and sought to obstruct this finding.
4/ NBC News reported in January 2018 that Donald Trump privately believed Paul Manafort could incriminate him in a federal crime—but that by January 2018, information had reached him (privately) that had convinced him that Manafort would not in fact do so.
5/ The Mueller Report clearly establishes that Trump received the private intelligence that Paul Manafort would not incriminate him in a conspiracy—by refusing to cooperate with federal law enforcement, *not* because Manafort *couldn't* incriminate him—from Manafort's legal team.
6/ Criminal investigative SOPs (standard operating procedures) establish why Trump believed federal law enforcement would seek to have Manafort incriminate him: because investigators do not cut deals with a national campaign manager *without* seeking to indict someone higher up.
7/ When the special counsel's office charged Manafort with offenses that could put him in federal prison for 20 years—and then entered into a cooperation deal with him—the only person above him in the campaign hierarchy for him to "flip" on was the presidential candidate himself.
8/ The legal analysis published digitally by @Slate confirms the uncharged offense on Manafort would have been a federal criminal—election—conspiracy with individuals he knew from his work on behalf of the Kremlin were Kremlin agents. This is the "flip" Trump was terrified about.
9/ The Mueller Report establishes that Manafort had been a paid Kremlin agent, via Oleg Deripaska—who says he "does not separate himself" or his interests from those of the Kremlin—since the year Manafort moved into Trump Tower (2006), and that he remained so during the campaign.
10/ Manafort's work for the Kremlin—once thought to have ended in the early 2010s—in fact continued in and past his work as Trump's campaign manager. Mueller's report and testimony establishes that Manafort anticipated both loan forgiveness and cash from the Kremlin for his work.
11/ Mueller's report and testimony establishes Manafort as a Kremlin agent in 2016 and after—federal law establishes he was in a criminal conspiracy with the Kremlin based upon his agreement to coordinate with and provide proprietary data/intelligence to the Kremlin mid-campaign.
12/ That Donald Trump thought Mueller would indict him if Manafort flipped means that Trump had knowledge of the criminal conspiracy Mueller opted not to charge Manafort with—a decision Mueller made so Manafort would flip on Trump. Trump's criminal obstruction prevented any flip.
13/ The Mueller Report outlines how Trump—through a joint defense agreement with Manafort and his lawyers acting as intermediaries—made it absolutely clear to Manafort that he would be "taken care of" if he refused to "flip" on his former boss. The obstruction hid the conspiracy.
14/ For those who haven't read Vol. 1 of the Mueller Report, I'll now briefly summarize the federal criminal election conspiracy Mueller chose not to indict Manafort for because of a) him thinking Manafort would flip on Trump, b) an "error" of law by the special counsel's office.
15/ I put "error" in quotes advisedly. Mueller cut a cooperation deal with Manafort because his office *knew* the federal criminal statutes governing US election law do not require "explicit" coordination; that Manafort had violated these laws; and that he could "flip" on Trump.
16/ There was no reason for Mueller to cut a deal with Manafort—or for his office to represent to federal courts that the lies Manafort told the SCO that mattered were the lies hiding this conspiracy—if the feds did not believe Manafort had committed an election conspiracy crime.
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